Mud
by NefariaBlack
Summary: Oh, how he missed the days of hanging students from the ceiling by their thumbs. One shot, written for several prompts


_A tiny little piece written for a bunch of prompts, all to be found at the end_

 _Word count – 698_

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 **Mud**

It was a dark and stormy night. It had been pouring rain all day, and that only meant one thing to him. Filth.

Filth and mud and water all over the place, in footprint shape, and blobs, and bits, and drops. Filth all over the castle. Because it had been raining all day on a Saturday, and the students saw it fit to go outside anyway. A bunch of daredevils had even been playing Quidditch until Professor Hooch stormed the field and drove them all back inside, brooms dragging on the floor, leaving soil and grass in trails all the way from the door, up the stairs, and into Gryffindor tower.

And now it all had to be cleaned up. Only to be soiled again, and again, and again. Day after day. He kept cleaning and they kept dirtying the place. And when the students were quiet in the dead of night, supposedly asleep, there was Peeves.

His back hurt, his hands were blistered from the mop and the handle of the bucket. There was just one of him against the hundreds of them, and that meant a lot of moping on days like these. It didn't help his mood that it had been raining for a week straight.

A lightening crossed the sky outside and the hallway was eerily lighted for a second. The thunder followed, almost immediately, shaking the window at the end. A little witch squealed in fear at the light, releasing a veritable shriek of terror after the thunder. He could hear her friends mocking her, laughing as much as they tried to comfort her.

"It's fine, Marietta. It's not like it can hit you in here."

"How did the window survive that scream?"

Argus could hear their steps approaching. He looked at Mrs. Norris, sitting several feet away, on the pristine floor he had already scrubbed, her tail coiling and uncoiling, her eyes looking into the distance, towards the sound. He screamed into the corridor.

"You better have your shoes dry!"

The students kept walking in his direction, loud and joyous. How he hated those sounds now. Children that had wands at their disposal, and still didn't use them for anything useful like cleaning their feet and cloaks when they came inside. No, it was all silly nonsense with the students. Flying objects across rooms, and turning tea pots into bunnies and what not.

He glared at the bunch when they turned the corner. Cloaks dripping water all over his work. He was about to scold them when the lightening fell again, and the thunder with it.

There wasn't just one screaming student anymore. They were just past the window and they all jumped and yelled when it rattled. And then they ran. The whole lot of them came careening down the hallway, some out of true fright, some out of fun, mocking and laughing the others as they went.

They never acknowledged his presence. They never saw the bucket. They never noticed that there was a line in the stone floor they treaded, one that parted the soiled from the cleansed.

Dark cloaks went by flying, coloured with red and gold, bronze and blue, and all the other colours he had come to hate, obscuring the identities of the perpetrators. Mrs. Norris deviated from their path, showing her fangs and hissing, her red eyes beaming. They didn't see her either. Once they were gone, another corner taken in long strides, there was a flipped bucket lying on the floor, besides a fallen mop. There was a puddle of water, expanding, diluting the line he had created, pushing it back.

Argus picked the bucket and the mop up and went back to cleaning, keeping the water from spreading, muttering away all the dark deeds he wished to do, all the ways he could punish them. They never saw him, or his work. They played with their silly little wands, soiling the place with their magic, never taking a second to think of what they could really do with them. He couldn't even report them properly and demand punishment. Oh, how he missed the days of hanging students from the ceiling by their thumbs.

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 _Author's Notes: Prompts and Challenges_

 _Assignment #6 Lineage Studies: Task 1 - Write about someone feeling/being invisible_

 _365 Prompts Challenge: Line - It was a dark and stormy night._

 _Fanfiction Resolutions: 49. Write a fic exploring one character only - no pairings._

 _Caffeine Awareness Challenge: Witch's Coffee - Write about a Squib_

 _Jewel Challenge: Agate Necklace – Weather: stormy_


End file.
